February 04, 2018 – The Gospel is Greater than Miracles

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

English

I am not going to preach on the first reading this morning, but I do want to point it out to you. Read that reading and tell me that it does not describe a time in your life or in the life of someone you love. Those words were written two and a half millennia ago, and yet they still ring true today. No one can tell me that the Bible is boring or not worth reading when it shows such incredible insight into human concerns and human motivations. No one can tell me that modern man is somehow superior to or different than our ancient ancestors when we are clearly dealing with exactly the same problems and concerns.

Now, that said, let’s talk about the Gospel. This year is Year B, meaning that we will ordinarily hear from the Gospel of Mark on Sundays. Mark is a fast-paced Gospel, often written using the present rather than the past tense and jumping from one story to the next without a lot of transition. Many scholars describe Mark as an Passion Narrative with an extended introduction, meaning that the main purpose of this Gospel is to talk about the death and resurrection of Jesus, and that the first half is simply stories that Mark wanted to preserve to show Jesus’ authority and importance.

Now reading the Gospel of Mark, one might get the impression that the most important things Jesus did were his healings and his driving out demons. These are certainly the most exciting things, and they are rightly emphasized by the Gospel writer. But we misunderstand the entire message of the Gospel if we ever begin to believe that Jesus came for the purpose of healing and driving out demons. No, he came for something much greater.

Look at Jesus’ own words. “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose I have come.” According to Jesus himself, his purpose is to preach. But what is he preaching?

The answer comes a few verses earlier in Mark: Jesus proclaims “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.” Jesus is preaching the Kingdom of God, a complex and difficult concept that recurs again and again in the Gospels. Pope Benedict provided an especially insightful reflection on the Kingdom of God in his book Jesus of Nazareth and I think his interpretation is sound – when Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God, Jesus is speaking of God’s present action in the world, God’s acting in order to bring everything into unity with himself. Which ultimately means that Jesus is preaching about himself. There is no more definitive action of God in the world than his becoming human and living among us. The in-breaking of God, the good news that requires repentance, is Jesus himself.

So, then, why the miracles? If the purpose is to preach about the action of God in Jesus, why perform miracles at all? I would propose to you that the miracles are the proof of Jesus’ message. By showing that he has power over sickness and evil, Jesus is proving that God is present, that God is active in the world through him. A crazy guy with a bullhorn is just a crazy guy with a bullhorn until he heals your mother-in-law or drives a demon out from your brother.

Jesus performs these miracles so that people will believe the preaching. Jesus performs these miracles to confirm that he preaches with the authority of God and that he is the agent of God acting in history. In nearly every miracle story in the Gospel, Jesus either performs a miracle to confirm his authority or performs a miracle in response to someone who already has faith in his authority. Consider last week’s Gospel and this week’s Gospel together, as they appear in the Bible. Jesus teaches in the synagogue, and people were astonished because he taught with authority. “Astonished” here really means that the people could just as easily reject his teaching as believe it. They did not know what to think. So what does Jesus do? Bam – he drives out a demon. Believe him yet? Bam – he heals Simon’s mother-in-law. Believe him yet? Bam – he heals all the sick and possessed in Capernaum. Believe him yet?

But remember, his purpose is not to perform miracles, his purpose is to preach. A few decades after the Gospel of Mark we get the Gospel of John, where Jesus expresses incredible frustration with the Jewish authorities and his “faithless generation” for constantly demanding signs. In other words, Jesus is frustrated because these people are focused on the proof, rather than the purpose, the miracles rather than the message. “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” he says. “Okay, great, but can you prove it?” they respond. This is, I believe, why Jesus is so insistent in the Gospel today that he move to other towns. The people of Capernaum were going to become numb to Jesus, to be tempted to think of him simply as a miracle worker, simply as a guy who can heal the sick and drive out demons. Kind of like the local doctor or pharmacist, but more mysterious. You can hear them now. “Okay, yea, Kingdom of God. Sure. whatever. Can you please focus on Johnny’s sniffles?”

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We are no different than the people of Jesus’ time. When someone asks us who Jesus is, what do we say? Do we focus on the incredible action of God in history, who saved us from our sins through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of his son? Or do we focus on the healings and the miracle stories, because they are fun and easy to remember?

Similarly, how do we pray? Do we treat God as no more than a heavenly miracle dispenser, where if we put in enough quarters or prayers, we will get what we want? This is not the point of prayer, and it ignores the message of Jesus entirely. The point of prayer is unity and relationship with God. The point of prayer is to remind us that God is present in our midst, that the Kingdom of God is at hand, that God is acting powerfully in our lives with his grace. Yes, we ought to make our needs known to our Heavenly Father, but we do so similarly to a spouse who tells her husband about the stresses of the day. Her husband may or may not be able to help (or in God’s case, choose to work a miracle or not), but that is not the point. The point is the sharing, the relationship, and the comfort that comes from having someone else to help you shoulder the burden.

I have had people come into my confessional because God is not granting some miracle that they are praying for, and they believe it is because they are sinful. Well, I am overjoyed that they want to confess their sins, but this is not how God works. God performs miracles in order to preach the Gospel. Oftentimes, God can preach the Gospel without any miracles at all. In fact, the remarkable miracle of repentance and forgiveness of sins that these people experience ended up happening specifically because a miracle was not performed. That, my friends, is the pinnacle of irony.

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So as we continue our journey through the Gospel of Mark, let’s keep things in perspective. The Gospel, the Good News, is that God has acted definitively in history through Jesus. We are called to repent and believe. The miracles are only there for those of us with unbelieving hearts who need a little extra help.